[pp.int.general] Protest certain musicians?

[Bernhard Schillo]

Eduardo Robles Elvira schrieb:
> On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 1:18 PM, Bernhard Schillo <b.schillo at gmx.net> wrote:
>   
>> Some people in the pirate party for example suggest a copyright of 15 years
>> for commercial exploitation. I strongly oppose this, because it would
>> disadvantage the creator instead of the companies who commercialise the
>> copyrights. For my part copyrights can be completely abolished - but if that
>> is not going to happen, in my opinion it's _not_ ok to reduce them to a span
>> below the lifetime of the creator. A company, who owns distribution channels
>> is able to make money of a composition within 15 years. A musician, who
>> plays on the street, is not.
>> (I mean copyrights for commercial use - the private use of copyrightet
>> material should be free of course).
>>     
>
> If we are to stick with copyright, I think it's important to set of
> fixed years for its limited duration. Be it, 15 or 30, we shouldn't
> say "reduce it to the lifetime of the creator". Think about it, I'm
> sure that if the law said so then many authors would be "terminated"
> so that their copyright ends. I mean, it's quite risky for the life of
> a well-known and successful creator. That would be even more true if
> you take into account that when an artist dies suddenly his works
> sellings sky-rocket (think for example about Michael Jackson).
>
> That's why we should set a fixed number of years of copyright term.
>   
Because of these reasons my suggestion for a duration of copyright is 
the lifetime of the crator PLUS 15 years after creation of the work. For 
example when the artist dies at an age of 80 years and wrote a song at 
the age of 75 years, the song would be copyrightet 10 years after his 
death.

If we find a way to judge it, for my part we can say, if a creation 
(e.g. a song) is successful and the creator has earned enough money, it 
should be in the public domain immediately, but how can you measure 
that? It's not possible.

And you have to remember, that we not only want to reduce the duration 
of copyright, we also want the private use completely to be free. So we 
talk only about commercial use, for example in a television commercial 
or something like this.

> And these years of monopoly over the exploitation of the copyrighted
> piece of work should be:
>  * enough time so that the industry doesn't wait for the copyright
> term to finish to start using it and profiting in most case. Sometimes
> artists (a photographer for example) do a lot of pieces of work but
> only some of those are really successful.
>   
This time can be very different. There are a lot of factors which affect 
it. For a movie it's absolutely different than for a song or a book. 
Even for the music business there can be very different conditions. Did 
you get my point, that the music industry can push their "stars" by 
marketing? So they can make money in the period which you call "enough 
time". But a "poor artist" who has not the marketing possibilities of 
the music industry can't do so and after "enough time" the industry can 
take his compositions and make money with it while he is still poor. 
That's not ok in my opinion. You can't find a span for copyright which 
does justice to all this facts. Therefore in my opinion it's no good 
idea to disconnect copyright from the lifetime of the creator. Culture 
in my opinion has not mainly a commercial aspect, it has mainly a human 
aspect. Like i said before in my opinion it would be better to abolish 
copyright completely than to shorten it to some years.
 

>  * not too large, because you know, people living from a photo they
> did 40 years ago is what I'd call parasites in the system. Copyright
> should encourage artists to work more, not the contrary.#
>   
Nobody lives from a photo he did 40 years ago. The business of 
photographers is again very different from musicans and others. The most 
people in the "graphic industry" are freelancers and work on demand. The 
only persons who live from old photos are the owners of stock photo 
agencies. The copyright actually does not  cause, that creative people 
have not to work (except some musicians and hollywood stars), it causes, 
that there exists a lot of  stock material. If you want to use a stock 
photo and don't like the conditions, you just have to pay another 
photographer to take a similar picture. It's ridiculous to call 
photographers or illustrators "parasites". You have no idea of their 
business.
> This my position about this topic, and PIRATA's position too. We just
> need to agree a reasonable number of years for the copyright term, I
> think 20-30 or so was suggested.
>   
In Sweden the pirate party wants 5 years, i think. Some people might 
propose 20-30 years. Some Guy from Harvard has said, that 15 years is 
the average time in which something can be converted into cash. But this 
is not a reason to shorten the copyright to that time in my opinion.

This discussion was not very important till now - in germany e.g. the 
discussion wasn't that deep. But it will get more important i think. And 
it can bring me as an artist in opposition to the pirate party though i 
strongly support the aims in general.

I am very alarmed, when i read, that you call creators "parasites" while 
you want to advantage the industry. I thought, that the pirate party 
wants changes which are good for creators and public against the 
monopoly industry, not good for public and monopoly industry against the 
creators.

regards
Bernhard Schillo